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Dealers: The Next Generation

This was a moment for me, as a comics dealer, where I could see the hobby jump the shark. (And I’m positive the same thing happened in toys, baseball cards, etc.) It’s a fragile little economy, kind of like a stock market. To me, this was the first sign of a decline, but people are still making money, so they don’t see it.

I’m not a ‘real’ editor, though I do proofread three webcomics. In an episode of Making Comics Bachan made the point that webcomics have an entire audience full of editors, where some of them even pay money instead of being paid. Which he thought was pretty fantastic. And that’s also been my take on it: If artists/authors choose to take advantage of it, most webcomics have an abundance of potential editors.

Though I can understand if someone gets a little sad if the only feedback they get is my nitpicking. And I can also understand if they don’t really care about minor or blatant spelling errors that don’t confuse the readers.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I think it’s all on how you couch your critique. Constructive critiques should always be welcome, but it’s the haters you really have to watch out for. They’re all about themselves rather than helping.

I’ve been reading this strip for a while now and I’m not sure if I’m getting things right. So the whole thing is like a scalper’s memoir? Is this a cautionary tale? Am I supposed to be sympathetic to these two and their “wife problems” and scalping hardships?

I continue to read because I was very involved in the collecting community of the Star Wars (late 90’s) heyday and from what I’ve gathered, this is a comic starring the sorry dicks that made collecting everything but fun. Their troubles with other scalpers are hard to sympathize with.

A lot of the story is based on true life experiences behind the table. Part of the key to Gary’s character is his love for the Empire Strikes Back because of the connection to his dad, which inspired his collecting. http://www.thewebcomicfactory.com/2010/11/14/dealers-7-dad-and-star-wars/
The story, for me, centers around how the hobby transforms Gary and Wayne from hobbyist to businessmen and how that transformation effected the other veteran toy sellers as well. That’s the tough part. They’re not scalpers, but they are trying to make a profit and while there is a love of the hobby, their lifestyle can’t continue without the money and it escalates. The entire graphic novel is going to be 124 pages long and its completely scripted, so it’s hard for me to talk about the ending without giving it away. Were you a collector back in the 90’s?

We’re at the point in the story we sorta call the “heart of darkness”. Our Dealers are in pretty deep now. They’ve caught what we call “the disease” in which collecting stops becoming fun and starts becoming a hardcore obsession. Except for our guys they’re like gamblers as well. They’re up now and think they can push this even further.

This scene shows a turning point. Gary and Wayne used to be that guy. And it’s kind of sad the comments they are making. They are becoming everything they hated starting out.

The way they treated their wives at the con is ludicrous but they were trying to make a point that they should stay out of their business. Unfortunately they both married selfish women (as I did in the late 90s) and the girls want to know exactly how much money is being spent, what is coming in, who they are dealing with etc…

Their little world of collecting is exaggerated somewhat from the reality Tony, myself and perhaps you lived. It’s all very mafioso (Tony D wrote Complete Mafia for D20 and some indie mob films) but on the smallest most pathetic scale possible.

There will be consequences for the way they are acting. But it’s not going to be all bad. Perhaps some of the joys of being a geek will be reclaimed at some point down the road. We will see.

We appreciate your readership and hope you’ll stick around to the end of the story which should be sometime late next year. Thanks again!